SPRINGTIME EUPHORIA

Czech New Wave films are shown around the
world, as Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains
wins an Oscar, and Olinka Schoberová, the
Czech Brigitte Bardot, is featured on the cover
of Playboy in America. In the meantime,
Otto Wichterle invents contact lenses and
the gymnast Věra Čáslavská wins four gold
medals at the Mexico Olympics. However, the
euphoria is soon to end as Warsaw Pact tanks
roll in…

1960 800 000 people work out at the Spartakiada mass synchronised gymnastics
display.

1961 Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin visits Prague. The communists
remove the Stalin monument. Otto Wichterle makes the first contact lenses at
home, using an apparatus made from a Merkur construction set.

1962 Jonah
and the Music Hall premieres at the Semafor Theatre.

1963 Václav Havel’s play
The Garden Party is staged at the Na Zábradlí Theatre. The pop group Olympic is
formed. Vojtěch Jasný’s film Cassandra Cat wins a prize at Cannes. Karel Hubáček
starts building Ještěd, for which he later receives the Auguste Perret Award.
Cinemas screen the science fiction film Voyage to the End of the Universe, with
music by Zdeněk Liška. Karel Gott wins the Golden Nightingale award for the first
time.

1964 A new car, the Škoda 1000 MB, goes on sale. The film Lemonade
Joe wins an award in San Sebastian.

1965 The Podolí swimming pool complex
is opened in Prague. Radek Pilař makes his celebrated animated introduction
for the children’s early evening cartoon slot. Kádár and Klos make The Shop on
Main Street, for which they win an Oscar. Television broadcasts a new children’s
programme: Come On, Let’s Play. František Maria Černý designs concrete steeples
for the Emmaus Monastery in Prague.